don mclean - american pie

When the song came out, it was 13 years after the event; I imagine that distance felt like several lifetimes to anyone around for both song and event (I was only 10). If a song came out today about something that happened in 2005--Katrina, say--I don't think it would seem nearly so far away, but I don't know.

― clemenza, Sunday, February 4, 2018 2:50 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think there are some subjects/contexts where the 2005 could seem as distant to us as the pop music/youth culture of 13 years earlier seemed to American Pie listeners in 1972? like the internet of 13 years ago no twitter, no youtube, facebook in its infancy etc - maybe the 2018 American Pie should be a song about Blogger or Friendster or something

Wonder which Sonny Bono composition is being referred to

True. But 2005 has no romance, no juice, it's just technology we're talking about. 1959 was the zenith of American power and culture, basically, the '60s were a period of examination of all the other shit America had forgotten as it careened toward its peak. There was plenty of technology then, too, but much remained unknown, because the technology of the era could not tell you everything, and now we live with the probably suicidal illusion of omni science. . Rock and roll was about the mystery of it all. I'd play those LPs of '50s and early-'60s hits from people like Faye Adams and the Flamingos and think, shit, what was this? Same feeling I used to get watching '30s and '40s movies on TV--this was America. But yeah, that's a good idea for a remake of the song. James Redd, the Bono song is "Laugh at Me," on the first Mott album.

^ basically restating the thesis of "american pie"

the power of the mythical '60s narrative is still very much here. i don't think it will die with the boomers.

James Redd, the Bono song is "Laugh at Me," on the first Mott album.
Oh yeah, thanks

I know there's a certain evasion in the boomer mystery cult of rock and roll. I've never taken Bruce Springsteen seriously--in Meltzer's words, he's Garfield the Cat and the Fonz. The old stuff on those LP collections of pre-Beatles rock hits was pretty juicy, is all I'm saying. The zenith of American culture didn't have anything to do with rock and roll; that was Vertigo and Kind of Blue, Douglas Sirk films, Sinatra on Capitol, etc. Nothing quite as declasse as rock really mattered at that moment, 1957-1963. West Side Story, Nabokov novels in The New Yorker, maybe even folk music, the bossa nova craze. All swept away in about a month after the Beatles hit. I find it unutterably spooky and melancholy, like some Don DeLillo or Pynchon novel.

So, Donald Fagen's The Nightfly is kinda the real "American Pie," come to think of it.

The modern American Pie is Public Enemy and Anthrax teaming up on Bring the Noize

i liked this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjbKqzRwc7k

Thought that would be Weird Al version

This song is the high point of American creative endeavour

I can never get past the fact that he sings "drinking whiskey and rye" in the chorus. It's like saying "drinking beer and pilsner" or "eating sandwiches and subs." It's a long song and I could forgive a clunker or two, but in the chorus on such an easy rhyme

but: there are plural "good old boys" - so, some sat down and ordered well whiskey and some specifically asked for rye.

lol this guy

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FE5B0WDX0Acy1zZ?format=jpg&name=small

Were "good ol' boys" really listening to (and mourning) Buddy Holly in 1959? To me the phrase connotes grown men, not the teenagers who almost certainly made up the rock 'n' roll audience at the time?

at high school we had a prizegiving ceremony for the kids who were best in each subject and one year they announced the awards were being given out by Don McLean, and me and my one other pal who knew the name as Mr American Pie got really confused, because we had had minor local celebs come give out the awards in years previous but Don McLean was surely far too famous to come to a town fifteen miles out of Glasgow?

It turned out Don McLean was Donald McLean, former high school alumni who lived locally to be in his 90s, not Actual Don McLean.

I love that we're seriously discussing the fictional drink orders of fictional 1959 individuals

because, like, a song implies a universe in which its events are taking place

levees are usally at least a little bit wet btw

that line always makes me think of the masterful couplet "when you're driving in your chevy and your pants are gettin heavy"

WRONG DUDE

shockingly old when a 2 year old post taught me about well drinks

This song deserves to be in the Library of Stank Shit

The only thing worse than it is Madonna's version

A lot of "American Pie" hate on this thread, but I'll post here anyway. I just published a book on McLean's song--and on 1972's pop music in general--with Kindle Direct (which has gotten progressively worse from an author's standpoint since taking over Createspace--I mean in terms of paying, not the quality of the books). It's also, in an epilogue, about the book itself: it started with a publisher but ran into trouble because of McLean's personal issues (about which I knew nothing when I started the book 15 months ago).

I'll put the American Amazon link here:

https://www.amazon.com/Happy-While-American-Awkward-Confusing/dp/B0C2SCKY79/ref=sr_1_1?crid=H4AZCP49K0ZC&keywords=phil+dellio&qid=1683151857&sprefix=phil+dellio%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1

I'm with J.D.'s post earlier in the thread when it comes to the song.

Scott Woods, Chuck Eddy, and I did a Zoom about the "American Pie" book (above) a couple of weeks ago; Chuck wrote the foreword for the book.

I write a bit in the book about "American Pie"'s relationship to Classic Rock stations, such as it is/was, a topic that's come up in the last couple of days on a different thread (in general, not connected to "American Pie").

part 1 - youtube.com/watch?v=TN8n-JMMbyQ&t
part 2 - youtube.com/watch?v=Q-xZcmz54C0
part 3 - youtube.com/watch?v=AGJlsqJ0Yk4